Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil

by Judith Merkle Riley

“That's what I mean! Selfish to the bone! You don't need a house! You can always live here!”

  “I can't imagine a worse fate! Shut up with a dancing lunatic and a family that doesn't know Aquinas from Hob the Plowman! Every time I get my life in order, this place catches me in its claws!”

  “So now you despise the manor where you were born and bred! I see the depths of you, Gilbert, and they're not pretty! You have set me up to be betrayed to a King's magistrate. Is that how you reward me for my paternal devotion? I tell you, I should wring your head off your shoulders this very moment!”At this Sir Hubert dove after Gilbert, intent on strangling him. Gilbert stepped back, and the attack failed, merely knocking him to the ground.

  “Father,” he gasped, as the heavy weight pressed the breath out of him,“get off, or I'll betray you.” Gilbert's father grabbed him by the throat and started banging his head on the ground. God, my plainte, passed through Gilbert's mind. The blue, cloudless sky and tall grasses whirled above his sight. He could hear the “crack” every time his head hit, and he couldn't breathe. I can't even hit him back. Fathers, you can't touch them. So this is how it ends.

  “What in the HELL do you mean, you unnatural beast?”

  “Can't—talk—kill me—you stand—alone—”

  “What is going on in that malignant, overgrown brain of yours?” said Sir Hubert, removing his huge, ham-like hands from his second son's throat. Spying the new look of bitterness in his son's face, he was somewhat taken aback. He stood, and Gilbert got up, dusted himself off and rubbed his neck for a while.

  “Lady Petronilla says she saw us bury the chest.”

  “Well then, that's no problem. She's a lunatic. She was possessed of multiple devils around that time, and posing as a succubus to boot. We'll just say we didn't do it. Whose word counts more, two men of good family, or a crazy woman?”

  “If you succeed in killing me, father, people of sense will assume you're getting rid of the only witness who could testify against you.”

  “Who's talking of killing? We just had a normal little disagreement, that's all. It's always done you good, a bit of discipline.”

  “It's never done me good, and if you ever touch me again, you will never see me or my family again. My door will be closed to you in this life, father.”

  “Family? Family? I'm family.”

  “Margaret's my family. Peregrine's my family. Those little girls that Kendall left are my family.”

  “Nonsense! Nonsense, my boy! Why, we'll pull through this together!” Sir Hugo put his arm around Gilbert's shoulder.

  “I said, don't touch me, Father,” he said, pulling away. “The time for that was long ago, and it has passed by.”

  “Without a doubt, you are the thorniest, most obnoxious, most conceited and self-centered excuse for a human being I have ever encountered. It's all from thinking too much! The mind works on itself. Entirely abnormal! You'd have been better off born with an extra nose than too much brain! You're exactly like your mother!”

  “We won't go into that, Father. I just don't want you to touch me again.”

  “Neither did she,” grumbled the old man as they walked toward the stable together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LOOK, MAMA, PEREGRINE'S HELPING.” I looked down to see Peregrine clutching a handful of smashed rose petals. He opened up his fist, and there they all were, all scrunched up.

  “Why, that's just right. Put them in the basket right there.” Along one section of the ruined outer wall of the manor, wild roses had grown, climbing among the tumbled stones in the breach and showing their flat, sweet-scented faces to the sun. Nothing finer for rose-water and for a special jelly I make of the rose hips that captures summer in a pot for the short winter days. Madame and the girls, Peregrine, and I were all laboring there in the sun, all of us in big straw hats that hardly began to cast enough shade. Madame and I cut off the hips with little knives, while the girls managed the big baskets of rose petals.

  “I'll put 'em in Cec'y's basket. Then it will be more,” announced Peregrine.

  “I don't want scrinchy-scrunchy ones in mine, so there,” said Alison.

  “Sing again, Cec'y,”demanded Peregrine. And Cecily started the song over in her thin, high little voice:

  “Gabriel, from Heven-King Sent to the Maide sweete, Broute hir blisful tiding And fair he gan hir greete:”

  Then Alison joined the song, her voice sweet and graceful, and Peregrine followed, still unable to carry a tune, with nonsense words that mimicked the girls:

  “Heil be thu, ful of grace aright For Godes Son, this Heven light Wil man bicome and take Fles of thee, Maide bright …”

  Madame pushed back her hat, and wiped the sweat from beneath the edge of her kerchief with the back of her sleeve.“I do so love the country,” she said, and I could see her face soften as she watched the children.

  “I wish I loved it more,” I said,“but since my lord husband and his father quit speaking, it's like living under seige.”

  “Sir Gilbert has the noblest heart in the whole world,” said Madame. “His honor is whiter than lilies. His father is the one who is in the wrong. He should take pride in a son like that. It is just that he has lived too long as he pleased—like these roses, here. He wants a bit of trimming back.” I couldn't help but chuckle secretly a bit at that. I had a sudden vision of Madame, armed firmly with a large pair of clippers, trimming up that wild old man, making him shave properly and wash decently and comb his hair every day. A little training and a nice trellis would do him good.

  At the clatter of hooves on the wooden bridge over the moat, we looked up to see two Austin canons on mules entering the main gate.

  “Oh, look, mama, visitors. I wonder what they want?” Cecily pointed at the two robed figures vanishing into the courtyard.

  “I wonder that myself. Let's finish up here and take everything inside. Then we can find out.”

  But by the time we had got everything and everyone together and come into the forecourt, things were already well under way. Sir Hubert was standing at the top of the stairs, whip in hand and hunting horn at his belt, clearly irritated at being delayed. At the foot of the stair, grooms holding horses and milling dogs impeded the further progress of the friars, who had to shout up the steps to be heard. Behind Sir Hubert, in the shadowy arch of the doorway, I saw Hugo. Gilbert, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Tell that old woman in skirts up at the abbey that he can take his private settlement and use it for ARSE WIPE!” the old man was shouting.

  Madame and I looked at each other. One of the monks tried to say something, but we couldn't hear it. Neither, apparently could the old man. The monk shouted, then, too, “—he has said he would hate to so disgrace an old family as to see father and sons in jail for forgery—”

  “Ha! Go tell that vile stable sweeping that we know he extends this offer because he knows we'll WIN! Our patron is the MIGHTY DUKE OF LANCASTER! Tell him THAT!”

  “It's a pity the Duke is in Calais, and none knows when he'll return. The case will doubtless be settled before you can even get a letter returned from the Duke to the magistrate—”

  “Words! WORDS! You sniveling toadies! You tell that snake, that swine, that so-called abbot of yours that WE will bring suit against HIM in ecclesiastical court—for theft, for lies, for forgery, for leveling false charges! He'll never see the sun again!”

  “Very well, you have been warned. Our abbot has sent for his own experts from London to verify the seals on your so-called charter before the King's magistrate himself.”

  “Verify my seals? Verify away! I CHALLENGE him! Those are the true seals of the conqueror himself, granting MY ANCESTOR possession, and NOT a crowd of cringing, whining, psalm-singing MONKS! Now OUT! Out of my courtyard, off my land, and back to your KENNELS!” The old man strode down the stair, brandishing his whip before him, and the Austin canons turned and ran toward their tethered mules.

  “Oh, dear,” I said to Madame. She only
sighed in response. Little does she know the whole of it, I thought. Then I caught sight of her eyes. She did know. Everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ASK FATHER JUST WHAT THAT CROWD of riders is coming in at the gate,” Gilbert shouted to me. I was standing in the middle of the hall, watching a groom get down one of the smoked quarters of venison from the rafters with a hook on the end of an extremely long pole, and thinking that I had seen corpses hanging on gibbets that looked more savory. Perhaps, I thought, it is eating all that carrion that makes this family so ill tempered. It had been almost two weeks since Gilbert and his father quit speaking, and the general burden on the household was getting unbearable. Gilbert in fact was standing far closer to his father than to me. They were both a half dozen feet apart at the end of the great hall, beside the wormy, battered old oak screen that shielded the hall from the open front door. They had turned their backs to each other. My father-in-law turned his head in my general direction and shouted back into the hall, “Lady Margaret, tell that useless oaf of a husband of yours that they are coming in response to my challenge.”

  “Margaret,”shouted Gilbert again without turning his head, “tell father that he's too old for tourneys. He'd be better off in bed.”

  “Margaret,” shouted Sir Hubert, “tell that IDIOT Gilbert that if he knew his NAVEL from his NOSTRIL he would know that this is the day I vanquish that flea-bitten excuse for an abbot in front of witnesses. These are the clerks from London, come to verify the seals. I issued a challenge to the abbot to bring on his experts. This day he will be confounded and covered in humiliation.” The old man folded his arms and smirked. Gilbert spun about and looked at him in horror.

  “You've done what? Father, you senile fool, he'll bring false witnesses, and you're undone. By God, what did I ever do to deserve a father like you?” His father, content with having forced Gilbert to be the first to break into direct speech, gave Gilbert a superior look.

  “I often wonder that myself, with respect to you. But if you must know, I have had the foresight to notify the magistrate, and ask him to send a clerk from the royal archives in case of dispute. We've even made parlay at St. Alban's, he and I, not that you deserve to be informed.”

  “And just how have you got the king's magistrate entangled in this thing?”

  “That's my own business. But they'll take the sworn depositions here before witnesses. And if the abbot sends a liar, he'll be finished off.”

  “So that's why you've had the dais and tables set up as if for court day. Ah, God, I'm getting a headache.” Gilbert smote his brow.

  “Run off, run off. There's nothing you can do for me. Bigod, three times in France, and never wounded in the front.”

  “Father, the last time I was hit by lightning,” said Gilbert, and I could see the back of his neck turning red with wrath.

  “That's exactly what I mean,” said his father. “Never in front. What will you do next time? Trip over a worm?” At this, Gilbert turned with fury on the old man, and as I raced to separate them, the steward brought them to order by informing them that the first of the guests had dismounted, and that the delegation from the abbey was just entering at the gate.

  Now here is what the surprise was. While I did not know any of the clerks, and knew the abbot only by sight, I knew the king's magistrate that had come from Westminster very well indeed. It was Sir Ralph FitzWilliam, the father of Denys the rescuer. He was dressed more grandly; his long velvet gown was lined with miniver, and he wore a great gold chain. But his shrewd face, dignified and calculating all at once, was exactly the same.

  “Why, Dame Margaret, what a pleasure that we meet once again,” he said, after he had been presented to me.“And how is your charming little wench, Cecily Kendall? I hear she has made much progress in becoming a lady. I myself stopped at the village church on the way here to inspect the famous altar cloth.” I'm afraid my jaw must have dropped, and I was silent too long for politeness. Where had he learned all of these things? A horrible suspicion began to grow in my mind.

  “Why, I'll have her called, once we've settled this thing,” Sir Hubert broke in. “There'll be plenty of time then for pleasant discourse. I've a rare cask of wine in the cellar you might have a taste for.” The tone of his voice, the look on his face, made the suspicion grow greater.

  But now the grooms had brought the locked chest from the tower room, and the abbot and his clerks were inspecting the locks, while the magistrate's clerks brought out a sheet of drawings of all the known seals of William, Duke of Normandy, conqueror of England, and his servants. Then there was a stir in the doorway, and the last of the swarm of monks that had accompanied the abbot entered, escorting a frail old man in the black habit of the Benedictines, bald as an egg, with a skull as thin as parchment and pale eyes that seemed almost sightless.

  It was a curious scene in the great hall, with the officials and clerks clustered at the dais with the abbot and Sir Hubert, Austin canons and blackfriars milling around the ancient old man seated at the bench by the door screen, and Gilbert and Hugo, looking military in their arms-embroidered surcoats, leaning against the wall with their arms folded. Madame and I sat obscure in a corner, Madame with the alert, quiet look of a cat inspecting a new place. Lady Petronilla, dressed in the odious ray-cloth gown, had demanded that a special chair be set up for her, set apart from the women's bench. But even this was not enough, and now she flitted in and out of the room, up and down the staircase, in a vain attempt to call attention to herself, while the most sinister figure of all, her confessor Brother Paul, scurried between the canons, their abbot, and the strange blackfriars, his smile ingratiating, his backbone flexible, and his whispers inaudible from our corner.

  Now they all crowded around as the triple locks on the steel bound chest were opened, and the documents brought forth. They laid them on the table dormant on the dais, before the magistrate and his clerks. My heart started to pound. Oh, Malachi, I thought, I hope they can't see the slight blurriness from the impression of an impression. Then I thought of the Papal Bulls, the royal orders, the thousands of indulgences that Malachi had created so well you couldn't tell them from real. How easy it had all seemed before. They have a false document, we'll have a better false document. But they weren't looking at the deed with all the scrutiny they were giving this. And suppose someone had bribed them? The abyss seemed to open in front of me. The clerks nodded, and pointed at the documents, and I thought my heart would stop.

  “Ha, hm,” they said. “Yes, there's no doubt.” I held my breath. “Definitely, the seal is genuine.” I breathed again, a big deep breath. “Therefore, we must conclude that this grant predates the deed you have purchased, your reverence.” The magistrate looked at the abbot with eyes brimming with false sympathy.

  “I am afraid,” he said, shaking his head gravely, “some scoundrel confounded the lawyer with an invalid deed. How could such a thing have happened? Oh, there were wretches in the time of Henry the Second.” The abbot was sizzling with rage, his own clerks counfounded and helpless. With an avuncular look, the magistrate leaned from his seat and said, “This is a terrible, an embarrassing thing. In such cases I recommend that the parties agree to the quiet, private settlement that I offer in the name of the King, to avoid the cost and time of going to law. And, of course, the disgrace and humiliation.” Beneath the sympathetic tone was the ring of hard iron. The magistrate had every intention of finding against the abbot. Beware of damages and penalties, said that secret clangor.

  “Wait,” said the abbot. “I have more proof that this is all an elaborate hoax. There was another object in that box besides this Norman document. Who doubts that the high and puissant Duke William gave the family of de Vilers their lands? But it is not the lands as a whole that are in dispute, it is the extent of those lands. And in this, the sealed document is silent.” The abbot paused, and pointed to the second document that lay on the table.

  “There lies a document in Latin, purporting to be written on be
half of one Ingulf the Saxon, and it is the only actual description of the property in dispute. The description is accurate. Uncannily accurate. And the document is not sealed. How can a document not sealed be official? It is this document that has been inserted among the true documents, and I have means to show that it is false.” He turned to the cluster of monks at the end of the hall. “Bring forth Brother Halvard.” The frail old man, supported by two monks, was brought to the center of the hall. I looked at Gilbert, and he had turned as white as a linen tablecloth. I looked again at the ancient man with the pale, clouded eyes. Suddenly everything was clear to me. This was the weak link. The monks had found a man who could read runes, or worse, who looked as if he could, and would lie for their advantage. It was over.

  Petronilla, in one of her journeys up and down the staircase, paused at the foot of the stair, a wolfish, unpleasant smile on her face as she listened to the abbot speak: “Recently, through good fortune, we entertained this group of holy blackfriars from the far lands of the North beyond the sea. Most generously, they have agreed to make pause on their pilgrimage to the shrine of the blessed martyr, Thomas of Canterbury, to assist us in unravelling this great mystery. This great sage, Blind Halvard the Wise, has deciphered many strange and ancient inscriptions in our possession. He may shed light on the original possessor of the last object found in the box.”As he spoke, they cleared a place for the ancient at the table immediately below the dais, and brought pen and paper to record his words.

  If the abbot had expected to shatter Sir Hubert with the news, he realized, somewhat to his consternation, that he had done nothing of the sort.

  “The drinking horn of my HEROIC ANCESTOR!” cried the old knight. “It will bear witness! See there where it hangs, in the place of honor in my hall! Ingulf, thy spirit lives! Come forth and save thy daughter's dowry, thy holy spring!” Everyone looked at one another as if Sir Hubert had gone as mad as his daughter-in-law. And yet, every soul there knew he was not capable of dissimulation on such a grand scale. Sly, he was, but an actor, never. Somehow, he had got it all into his brain that it was all true, the discovery, the chest, the ancient drinking horn. He actually believed in Malachi's madcap invention, the legendary Ingulf the Saxon. I wanted to cry. Oh, Malachi, in all the time I have known you, you have never been able to resist the extra flourish. Why? Oh, why? I had visions of inquiries with torture, inquiries to find out who had concocted the will of Ingulf the Saxon, a lifetime visiting the King's prison in Newgate, bringing food packages to my imprisoned husband. And all because Malachi had found an old drinking horn for sale and couldn't resist that last artistic touch. It wasn't worth it, the house. I could have managed somehow. Now everything was spoiled. I snuck a glance at Gilbert. His brow was furrowed, and he looked a little green around the mouth. I knew what he was thinking. Prison was nothing, compared to facing the wrath of his father when he found out that Ingulf was a figment of an alchemist's imagination.